


a spark of red

by cloudycats



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, stuff and nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 21:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudycats/pseuds/cloudycats
Summary: The sculptor grunts noncommittally when the shinobi comments, “Like a carrion bird.”Unsanitary and deeply misfortunate. Useful, though. Particularly when they're selling things. Less so when they're giving away things for free, such as droppings, or teething children.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	a spark of red

“The summoner arrives. _Excellent_ ,” the creature rasps. It sets its sake gently upon the mat, rises with an entirely unnecessary amount of cloak-swishing, and bows low to the shinobi in the doorway. “A pleasure to have been called here.”

“Ah,” says the shinobi knowledgeably.

The shinobi glances at the sculptor ( _Friend of yours?_ ), the sculptor raises an eyebrow ( _Shouldn't you know better than me?_ ), the shinobi narrows his eyes ( _What is it and what is it talking about?_ ), the sculptor sighs long and deep and pours himself another drink ( _You fought a headless centipede-possessed ghost gorilla to steal the mystical flower he gave to his mate as a courting gift so you can burn it to let you access the divine realm and mug a dragon until it cries, and now you're here asking about this admittedly very unusual individual? It's too early in the day for those questions, Wolf. It will never not be too early. I am going to sit here and drink my tea and listen to the musical sound of you taking care of all your own problems_ ).

All true and irrefutable. _Fair_ , the shinobi frowns, turning back to the creature as it straightens from its bow. 

Its horns touch the splintering ceiling. Its orange eyes – compound insect eyes, and the shinobi can note every individual lens – glow bright as a hearth in the dust and dimness. In that ash-seared voice it says, “I am Grimm, master of the Grimm Troupe.”

“I see,” says the shinobi, who does not.

“I've rarely been to a land so well suited to the Ritual as this. You called us at an opportune time, my friend,” Grimm rasps cheerily. “Enough remains of Ashina to resent its loss. The flames would burn of their own accord even without my kind's guidance. They're eager to be gathered.”

It pauses. Its body language gives nothing away, the mask and cloak and thin black armor hiding any subtle expression. The only impressions the shinobi can pick up from it are the ones it lets him.

The shinobi chances another look at the sculptor, who might as well be one of his carved idols for how much concern he shows at all this talk about resentment and fires. Strange.

“My friend – do you know your role on the stage?”

“No,” says the shinobi. He is, he thinks, going to need to ask questions at some point. He's not especially worried – he trusts the sculptor's judgment – but he might maybe be just a tad worried. “You said I summoned you.”

“You lit the beacon.”

The shinobi recalls lighting a lantern recently. He fell into a swamp and got trapped under a mountain by a hungry snake god who didn't give the slightest sign of wanting to leave anytime soon. For lack of anything else to do, he stoked the dusty coals in the lantern at the center of the snake god's temple. He thought in an abstract sense that attending to the snake's shrine might appease it enough for it let him past. In a practical sense, he thought throwing hot coals at the snake's scales might irritate it into reconsidering its sleeping arrangements, like a mosquito screaming into someone's ear.

He didn't actually expect it to work (the former, not the latter), but neither did he complain or particularly question it when it did.

Maybe he should have. Maybe he really should have.

“My apologies for assuming,” Grimm says, dipping its head. “I'll speak plainly, in that case. By lighting the lantern, you began our Ritual in this fading kingdom and named yourself an actor in its completion. Your role is to seek out my kin and collect the flames they've gathered. To aid you in this task – ” it extends an arm, and the cloak billows out wide to reveal a small white mask peering out of an inside pocket “ – my child will accompany you and guide you to the flames' locations.”

Grimm's child flails gracelessly out of its pocket and catches itself on silk-thin wings before hitting the floor. It flutters over to the shinobi and tries to stare him down.

The shinobi doesn't blink.

Neither does the kitten-sized bug child with no eyelids.

“Be polite to the summoner,” Grimm murmurs behind it, and the child chirrups and goes on to fly laps around the shinobi's head. 

The shinobi catches it out of the air as it passes in front of his face. The child's skin is soft and a little slimy, like a grub's, or Kuro's when he was even smaller than he is now. It wriggles in his hand, then flops limp with a grumble.

A moment later, it twists over on itself and gets its mouth and tooth nubs around his thumb.

“It's a spirited child,” says Grimm. “What flair it will have when it's grown.” There's a sudden wistfulness in its tone, the first sign that it might not be as bafflingly irresponsible a parent as it's given the shinobi cause to suspect, but it disappears into business with Grimm's next words: “Return to me when it finds no more flames.”

It bows once more to the shinobi, thanks the sculptor for his hospitality, then spins away and vanishes on the spot with a swirl of its cloak.

The temperature in the room drops three degrees with it gone.

“Well?” the sculptor asks his cup.

“I'll see,” the shinobi says. If he has time between his lord's assignments, and if Grimm's kindred aren't far out of the way, _and_ if the Ritual turns out to be... at least relatively benign, then he'll play his part in it. Grimm helped him greatly under the mountain. There are debts to be paid.

Also, he needs to give it its kid back. Who's to say there won't be more headless centipede-possessed ghost gorillas ahead? He can't take a child into the kinds of fights he gets into. He's seen the results of that.

“I won't tell you what to do,” the sculptor begins, the way he does when he's gearing up to offer very practical advice. He throws his drink back and stacks the empty cup atop Grimm's. “But you should consider it.”

The shinobi grunts.

“The fires have to go somewhere.” _Might as well be to a person who wants them,_ his deep stare-down with the half-empty sake bottle adds.

“You were talking,” the shinobi notes. Brimstone and alcohol linger in the air – Grimm was here for a while before he arrived. “Did it tell you what its plans are?”

The sculptor hums. The child growls and chews furiously on the shinobi's hand, trying and failing with all its might to break skin. It's not even matured enough to speak yet.

The shinobi wonders if he should be trying to teach it manners, things like _don't pick fights you can't win_ and _always have a suitable weapon on hand (if you are out of hands, find a way to procure one)_ , but Grimm did not make it very clear how much authority he has over its child. Also, the prospect of teaching reminds him of his own father, who he recently remembered has been dead for a while. So much for filial piety. Never mind honoring his father's memory, he completely forgot that the man who took him in and raised him to adulthood is dead.

Maybe there'll be another headless centipede-possessed ghost gorilla on the monks' mountain. It's hard to have complicated feelings with a sword the size of a city block chopping his way.

Eventually the sculptor replies, “Everything needs to eat.”

He grunts noncommittally when the shinobi comments, “Like a carrion bird.” Unsanitary and deeply misfortunate. Useful, though. Particularly when they're selling things. Less so when they're giving away things for free, such as droppings, or teething children.

“Where do you need to be?” he asks the teething child, who immediately perks up and stops munching. It looks up at him with big, glowing eyes and croons.

The shinobi crouches and unrolls his map across the floor. The child hovers over the scroll, whining thoughtfully, then drifts down to curl into a ball atop Ashina's dungeon. The stone he needs to collect is hidden somewhere in that area. He'll head there first, in that case; the monks can wait their turn.


End file.
